The Icesave dispute Iceland fought with governments of the UK and the Netherlands revealed inherent weaknesses in the European financial system. Bringing forward tensions between public and private law and falling outside the framework of traditionally neatly compartmentalized law the ambiguity of responsibilities was testing understandings and interpretations of international relations. The paper explores how larger and more powerful countries were politically able to pressure a much smaller state in time of crisis into abiding to their own interpretation of international law and in doing so rallying behind them support of international organizations like the EU and the IMF. In January 2013 the EFTA Court finally ruled on the issue, vindicating Iceland of wrongdoing and refusing the UK’s, the Netherland’s and the EU’s claims. Studying the Icesave dispute contributes to understandings of production of international legality trough practices and contested interpretations in the international realm.

Regarding Norway’s whaling, it was discovered that the Government has achieved quite a high level of transparency. However, in some areas, for instance training of whalers, there is still need for a higher level of transparency. Moreover, a higher overall level of transparency would be reached if all the information available in Norwegian, were also available in English.

Our analysis reveals that well-being is higher among immigrants in northern Iceland with strong social capital and with some connections to local networks. Individuals often resort to individual rationale to explain their circumstances, their choices and their subsequent well-being. We begin the discussion by very briefly reviewing the literature on well-being and by introducing the context in which the study was realised. In the following section, we examine the relationship between feelings of well-being and the urban environment; then we explore the belief that opportunities are plentiful in this northern town, and finally look at the relationship between the social support of immigrants and their well-being.

Economic, social and cultural rights have borne the brunt of the recent economic crisis and the austerity measures adopted to counter it. Due to their gradual implementation and the need of positive measures to implement them, they were the first to be attacked. After discussing the possible ways of applying economic, social and cultural rights in the first part of the essay, I will then examine their application during economic crises with a special reference to Greece focusing mainly on two fields, labour rights and social security rights, and the case-law produced by international human rights bodies in that respect.

A review of the books: Geir Hønneland, Russia and the Arctic: Environment, Identity and Foreign Policy (London/New York: IB Tauris, 2016); and Leif Christian Jensen, International Relations in the Arctic: Norway and the Struggle for Power in the New North (London/New York: IB Tauris, 2016)

The conservative Jewish, German and American philosopher Leo Strauss (1899-1973) proposes an interpretation of the causes of the crisis of modernity and argues that the only way in which we can reestablish social stability is to go back to classical political philosophy by Plato and Aristotle. In the following, I will introduce thought of Leo Strauss in order to show how we here can find a well-qualified concept of political conservativism. It is however clear, that this intellectual aristocratism is different from dominant conservative at the political right that also can be accused of having reduced politics to economics and utility maximization where focus is on promotion of personal privileges and interests rather than a concern for the common good in a strong political community.

The Bibliotheca Alexandrina is an extraordinary structure, rebuilt to bring back to life the mythic complex existing in Hellenistic times. It started its activity in 2002, and since then it has offered its visitors (about 1.500.000 each year) a myriad of activities in the fields of arts, history, science, philosophy. Yasmine Samir Kelada has been working at the BibAlex since its opening, covering different positions; she has therefore seen the BibAlex developing and increasing its function in the Alexandria cultural scene.

Who discovered America? We have debated this pointless question for 500 years. There was nothing actually to discover, and with good reason Cristoforo Colombo never used the verb “to discover” nor the word “discovery”. Correctly he didn’t speak about the New World, but “otro mundo”, the other world; say the other half of the globe. The Americas existed already, and already had they been populated. Only the unbound European arrogance and the interests involved in such an extraordinary event could mark as discovery what actually no discovery was. On the other hand, even if we want to proceed in the same reasoning, we could never state with certainty who the “first one” had been. We only know the last one: Cristoforo Colombo. With him and his contribution to the history of navigation, the whole world changed, and the modern age began. If the Americas are, nowadays, for better or worse, what we know, this is solely thanks to Cristoforo Colombo.